Physical Security Solutions

EnterpriseSMS® is the perfect solution for physical security applications. Agnostic about components, ESMS provides advanced capabilities for all types of access control, intrusion detection, video management, communications, and command center operations. Powerful operator GUIs leverage the software’s capabilities to create a situational awareness and command capability not seen in any other product. These GUIs are described below.

Physical security demands that the software be capable of connecting to myriad types of devices including traditional devices like credential readers, door sensors, locks, signage and exit buttons. Less traditional field devices might include license plate readers, truck scales, chemical and radiation detectors and many other kinds of special sensors. So, much of the system function is dependent on tracking the state of gates, doors and special portals. The system also tracks the identity credentials (badges, PINs, fingerprints, etc.) presented by accessors to gain approval for entry. EnterpriseSMS® utilizes non-proprietary components to provide the interface to these types of devices. As a result, the same products used for other applications may participate in access control and vice versa. In fact, physical security state monitoring is an application of ESMS’s broadly capable state monitoring and control capabilities that are the core of its SCADA and industrial operations applications.

Below, different physical security applications are discussed. These discussions introduce presentations and white papers that will help you understand why Enterprise is so unique and capable at providing such solutions. ESMS’s applications in support of physical security are highly advanced and can provide support for any sized enterprise spread across the world.

Access Control

ESMS supports all kinds of traditional approaches to access control like interfacing to other’s access control head ends or integrating access panels made by third parties. Both of these approaches are fine for facilities of standard access points. They are inadequate for complex access points. ESMS can do them all. Typically we will.

Complex access points typically involve multiple types of credentials that vary with accessors even in the same transaction. The typically involve non-traditional sensors such as license plate readers, sensors like radiological and chemical, load cells for vehicle weight, and reference to databases like bills of lading, trip tickets, etc. Always video is integrated into complex access points. Many of these types of access points have specific roles for local and/or gate operations and command center personnel.

ESMS implemented this type of access in pure software connected to necessary field devices. Cost competitive even for the simplest doors, this powerful approach is enormously flexible and scalable. Click on the papers and presentations below for more information.

Video Management

EnterpriseSMS® is the right choice for the integration of video in your system. The ESMS solution is completely agnostic about the manufacturers of your video edge components like NVSs and field components like Cameras and positioning systems. Multiple supplier systems are no problem. EnterpriseSMS® supports centralized direct to camera storage method models, NVS stored video, alternative storage strategies and mixed or hybrid approaches. Video may be broadly distributes across the IT infrastructure.

Beyond enormous flexibility is the choices of video components, ESMS also provides the Enterprise Command Station or ECS. See below for this powerful and flexible user interface tool! The white papers below provide additional technical information plus an inventory of supported capabilities.

ESMS Communications

Within ESMS these capabilities include voice communications but also include multi-media and SMS messages. EnterpriseSMS® utilizes VoIP for audio communications throughout. Conceptually, ESMS views all field audio devices including telephones and intercom stations as VoIP enabled devices. Where such field devices are not VoIP enabled, a VoIP edge component that connects the field devices to the network may provide these capabilities.

So, solutions involving non-VoIP devices of any type are possible as well as VoIP enabled devices. Many if not most telephone systems today are VoIP telephone systems. If a site does not have a VoIP system, ESMS can provide one. This enables all of the functions of a powerful open source telephony application Asterisk including merging all audio field devices into a single subsystem. The link below will provide more information about Asterisk.

Intrusion Detection

Intrusion detection is the process of monitoring a potentially diverse set of sensors for their individual state and applying rules to the collected device states to determine if an intrusion has occurred. There are many simple examples in access control.

Consider a door controlled by a badge reader. Usually, if the door is opened without a valid badge read, the opening is considered an intrusion or “forced door”. If the door is opened as part of a valid access transaction, then the occasion of the opening means that an authorized access was detected. If not, then there was an access grant without actual entry. Finally, if the opening occurs but the door does not close within a prescribed period of time a “propped” door will be reported. All of these different scenarios represent rules based on the state changes of a door position sensor and the virtual state of the access point. These rules are defined in software based on menu selections. Parameters are entered into a form that turns on and off selected rules. Any device may be use to fulfill the information requirements of the rule just as multiple devices may also be part of the calculation of a state, real or virtual.

Intrusion detection is implemented as rules applied to device and virtual states. Of course, for most situations these rules are well defined and automatically applied to the various devices as they are defined. One value of ESMS is that any device may perform in any role and be subject to any rule. Since such a general capability has been used to support physical security, the link below will lead to a general treatment of state monitoring.

Credential Management and Visitors

EnterpriseSMS® supports an extensive credential management toolbox. The modules may be combined to support nearly any credential authentication, accessor enrollment, appointment system, visitor registration, and identity management system. Identities include persons and vehicles and nearly any other identifiable object. The solution includes support for photo imaging, biometric enrollment, credential and other breeder documents. Follow the link below to see the diversity of these capabilities.

Enterprise Command Stations and User Interfaces

The Enterprise Command Station (ECS) is the tool box that is used to construct the user interface for physical security. This set of tools provides a flexible means to construct nearly any user interface with any function. In the case of physical security applications, this tool box provides unique, software configured options for user interfaces that greatly empower the users of this software.

From a physical security perspective, ESMS and the ECS provides an unusual set of capabilities. Since within the ECS all types of information are treated equally, if an operator is working with a video window they can perform any function that can be performed in a graphics, geospatial maps, communications, and alarm monitoring window and vice versa. (Click here for an overview of ESMS architecture and how this can be supported.) All such actions inherit the context of the point of origination such as the screen being viewed and the system components in the view. An operator may control the operations at another workstation if appropriate and the operator has the proper permission.

The best way to understand these capabilities is to use the system but the link below provides a comprehensive overview of all of the ECS functions.